Loving: The weather will be changing soon…. Summer has a magic to it but my heart belongs to fall. This will be our first fall in our new house and I’m looking forward to Scary October, apple cider, and walking around with slippers on all of the time because of our cold floor.

Reading: At the moment I’m reading my dad’s book about the Trail of Tears, with a biography of Albert Gallatin on deck. Really trying to flesh out my United States History class.

Thinking about: My “escape plan” …. exactly what needs to be done for me to quit my day job, including what products or similar I want to focus on in 2013 for Lemon and Raspberry

Surprised by: The girls. Cats are weird, dude. Fang especially just always has a story for us to share. Special Needs is what my co-worker calls her.

Making me sad: News analysts, journalists and all having to point out deliberate deception in politicians’ speeches. Any politician. Why can’t we all act like grown-ups and at least discuss the situations AS THEY ARE instead of making stuff up to sway someone?

Making me happy: My August Break. I feel sane again. I feel *mostly* caught up on all my projects and deadlines and have my Those Crazy Schuberts blog posts planned through mid-October or so! Thanks for letting me take a month off …. This *may* become a yearly tradition!

The original idea is to post just a photo each day instead of a whole blog post ….. but I am not even going to commit to that.

There *may* be photos here over the next month, but there may not be. We’ll see how I feel ….

At the moment, I’m just excited to have just a little more time every day for a short while…. But I’ve also ALREADY started planning and writing blog posts for when I return in September!

Those Crazy Schuberts will be back for sure Tuesday, September 4, 2012! With all kinds of photos and stories and updates! Our new front lawn and our Big Bear weekend and other stories ….. In the meantime you can check out all the other blogs participating in the August Break ….

Reminder: Khaleesi is the tortoise-shell, Fangsana (who we inevitably call ‘Fang’) is the gray one

Some kitten highlights from the last few weeks….

When we first got the girls, we relegated them to just the upstairs guest bathroom, and then slowly opened more and more rooms to them ….Partly so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed and would have a safe place to get to know their new owners and new home. And partly because our house wasn’t even remotely kitten-proofed.

By the middle of the first week, we had given them the bathroom, and the bedrooms on either side (currently mine and Andrew’s ‘offices’).

We wanted to open up the rest of the top floor for them, but were a little concerned about how they would handle the stairs. Especially since there’s space in between each stair.

So we used some cardboard to set up a temporary ‘gate’ and wall. …

They *probably* could have climbed over this lower bit at the top of the stair …. but they didn’t know that.

They really still had plenty of nooks and crannies upstairs to explore, so they didn’t mess with the fake wall too much.

They seem most comfortable in my office, but do still like to explore Andrew’s…. In fact, one night I came home from work and couldn’t find them. They had both crawled behind one of his audio racks and couldn’t get out! Cuties… But they weren’t really meowing yet, so I just had to stand still and hope I could hear them moving around.

They spent a lot of time chasing each other’s tails, poking around the rooms and sleeping. Always sleeping.

But starting that next weekend, we started getting more visitors to come meet the kittens …. so we decided to try to see how they would do on the stairs…

Andrew sat at the bottom and lured them down…. slowly the first time, but they soon gained confidence and started tearing up and down the stairs….

Once they had access to downstairs … everything changed.

We didn’t have to GO somewhere to sit with them – they just went wherever they wanted. We no longer had nice things – our couch is all scratched up and our curtains are snagged.

But it’s pretty fun to have one of them jump on the couch next to you while you’re watching a movie, or chasing each other around a box in the sitting room.

The girls are both SO different when it comes to love…..

Khaleesi is SUCH a cuddler. She’s the one who will crawl up in your lap if you give her the right 30 second window. Even when she’s being a little rowdier, if you pick her up, immediately hold her on her back (like a baby) and start petting her chest and chin she will relax immediately and forget all about playing.

Fang, on the other hand, would just rather be left alone. If she mistakenly lays down next to you and you start to pet her, she will more than likely get up and go lay somewhere else.

She never wants to be held, never wants to be in your lap. There is a small window of maybe an hour each day that she gets super purry and will want to rub her face against any part of your body she can find. But she’ll never settle down…. she just keeps walking and purring and pacing and face-rubbing (which is really fun at 4a).

We tried SEVERAL times to put collars (with bells) on them…. Partly because I feel certain they will figure out how to get out of the house (we have 3 doors after all), and partly because with the bells at least we’ll know where they are in the house

You would have thought we cut off one of their legs.

We tried 3 or 4 different times to get them to wear collars and it FREAKED them out.

Khaleesi would go and hide under the little nook under the kitchen cabinet and not move. Fang would link a few steps and then freeze … and then slink another few steps.

Finally, Fang somehow got out of her collar 3 days in a row (including breaking one) so we gave up. We’ll get them microchipped in case they get out, but we’ll have to do without the bells.

Not only does Khaleesi like to be HELD on her back, but if she’s already sitting or lying down and there’s a *chance* you’re going to pet her, she’ll immediately flip her head upside down or roll over so you can have easy access to petting her chest.

And then she falls asleep like that

The photos we have of Fang cuddling are few and far between – and not nearly as cozy

Another favorite sleeping place is in the curtains …. I haven’t hemmed them yet, so when we got the kittens the curtains were folded up and ‘hemmed’ with safety pins. After the kittens got to them, I had to undo the safetypins or the curtains would get even MORE ripped …..

And now they like to sleep on/in the 6″ of curtain that rest on the floor ….

Fang tends to favor the dark, thick brown curtains…. Those curtains we usually open all the way during the day and she makes herself a little cave at the bottom. Dark and secluded and no one to bother her.

Khaleesi tends to favor the sheer curtains that hang straight down in the front….

They don’t ONLY sleep ….

They spend a lot of time chasing any fly that gets in the house, or chasing each other up and down the stairs, or attacking the cardboard paper towel roll we gave them, or getting into any number of things they shouldn’t.

They also wrestle A LOT…. I think it’s really nice that we got 2 of them so they have each other to play with….

They don’t seem to be trying to hurt each other, but a couple times one or the other has had a bit of a winky eye and I’m sure she had gotten poked in the eye while wrestling!

Andrew and I like to imagine them talking to each other…. but calling each other “Sister” instead of by name…. As in, “Sister, look at this!” or “Sister, what’s that?” or “Sister! Move over, sister!”

Watch this video of them drinking out of my water glass …. ‘Sister, let me have some, sister. sister!’

So, hopefully this has been a good introduction to how the kittens have been for the last month or so …. Again, I promise not to inundate you with just kitten photos, but I want to record their little quirks and personalities for sure

Which one is your favorite?

I loved having cats growing up, but A) Andrew is allergic and B ) We haven’t ever had a permanent-enough-home to bring in a pet.

But ever since we got a house, Andrew has been OBSESSED with getting pets. We need to do a TON of work to the backyard, including building fences, so it’s not exactly the time to get a dog.

In the last few weeks, Andrew and I decided to get a kitten … .which somehow changed into two. And, coincidence! My cousin’s girlfriend’s aunt happened to have a brand-new litter of kittens!

She sent us a few snapshots, and Andrew fell in love immediately….

So, after acknowledging he’ll never breathe well again. After promising me that he will be in charge of feeding them and cleaning the cat box. After assuring me that he is prepared for a possibly 20 year commitment. …

Last Saturday we got 2 kittens – sisters.

Fangsana and Khaleesi

Fangsana is the one that is mostly gray, slightly larger and shyer than the other. She is in this photo below.

Khaleesi is more of a tortoise-shell. Slightly smaller and a bit bolder than her sister. She’s in the photo below.

The first day we set up a ‘safe room’ in one of the bathrooms…. They only *recently* started living indoors, so we wanted a space where they could get to know us, a small area to explore and a room that could be “theirs”

They didn’t seem very timid when we first let them out of the crate …. and in fact played together most of the afternoon.

I was down in the kitchen below “their” room and heard all kinds of bumps from their tumbling and pouncing.

They’re just barely 9 weeks – born April 5 – and are still getting to know themselves.

They’ve discovered that the other has a tail – but don’t quite know about their own tail.

When I went up later that first afternoon, they had found their way into the under-the-sink cupboard.

Not to worry – there’s nothing in there AND the cabinet door doesn’t close all the way, so they’re welcome to play in the space if they like.

Of course, as they wore themselves out playing all afternoon, by late afternoon it was naptime.

In the cupboard, instead of the $20 bed I bought them.

Of course.

Andrew was at work all day that we got them, so I kept myself busy texting him photos and video…. and he is in love!

Sunday morning we opened up one of the bedrooms to them, Tuesday morning we opened up the other bedroom. And then Wednesday night we opened up the hallway.

We’ll try to keep them upstairs as long as possible …. just because I think they’re a little too small to be able to handle the stairs. But I figure as soon as they’re smart enough to figure out how to get over the barrier, then they’ll be ready to head downstairs.

Now, a week later, they’re no longer afraid of the humans who come into their room.

They purr quite readily when we pet them, but they’ve only barely (and even then not really) found their meows.

They don’t appear to need or want attention, but they will allow themselves to be pet.

The first Anne book I read was Anne of Windy Poplars – which I read for the first time when I was about 9 or 10….. and hadn’t the slightest idea what the ‘Windy Poplars’ of the title was supposed to be until about halfway through.

But then I really *got it* …. The HOUSE. They NAMED THE HOUSE.

To a 9 year old growing up in the early 1990s in an L.A. suburb … this was REVOLUTIONARY.

And – clearly – I immediately resolved to name my future house one day….

I started seeing house (or estate) naming in all kinds of books ….. all the Anne books, Gone with the Wind, any Jane Austen book, even American history (i.e. Monticell0). And soon, I figured, there was no reason why I couldn’t name my own house.

I named my parents’ house in the last few years – Hann Manor (that lovely repetition of vowel sounds)….

For our own house, I wanted something that really would be fun to put on party invitations but still be very Andrew-and-Amy.

Some of you know we call ourselves Team Schubert (why we do that is a completely different story all together) …. And somehow Team Schubert wouldn’t live in a Windy Poplars or Manor or Mount Vernon.

The chef puts together a set menu based on what is fresh and in season that weekend at the Farmer’s Market…. Freshest ingredients lead to the best food….

I had been checking their website periodically to check out the menu. There was one other Sunday we were thinking about going, but the appetizer that night was avocado-based and that would have just been a waste with me…

This particular Sunday, however…. All deliciousness…

I actually branched out and tried their recommended cocktail … I don’t like alcohol at all, and I can taste it in any kind of fancy drink you want me to try …

But ‘the O word’ (described in the photo below) …. was surprisingly well mixed, and I genuinely liked it

We went on Oscar night …. so the menu was appropriately themed:

our salad/starter …. it got too dark for photos after that, but trust me. It was DELICIOUS.

We got one of each of the entrees…. and split them both.

Both fantastic. …. Oh my word, so good. I *think* I liked the lobster better …. but only just. The chicken + risotto was amazing too …

Cappuccinos to finish ….

… and then we went off to look for a studio space for Andrew. More on that later.

So, basically, if you happen to be in L.A. on a Sunday and have about $150 for dinner for 2 … GO TO LUCQUES.

Last week we actually met with our realtor!

Yes, friends, that’s right …. We have OFFICIALLY started out house-shopping process!

I seriously am so excited, as well as incredibly nervous! I’m impatient but also worried. …. Every emotion you can imagine when house shopping for the first time.

There are a ton of details that went into our decision to start shopping now…. But the biggest one is that my job has recently become exponentially more unbearable, and I can’t imagine staying there very long. I need the *option* to start job-hunting – but I have nearly 5 years job history there that we will need to qualify for a home loan.

So! We have a target price in mind, and *nearly* a 20% down payment. We know based on that target price that we will likely be buying in Saugus (where I grew up) or MAYBE Canyon Country, and most likely be buying a short sale (or maybe even foreclosure).

I’m actually OK with that. …. I don’t mind having to do work on our home where we hope to live for awhile. Especially since once we buy I can quit this stupid job.

I know I mentioned before that moving to SCV is slightly depressing. But Saugus is near Andrew’s family, some of my family and pretty much the only place remotely near Andrew’s work that we would be able to buy a house that ALSO allows me to quit my job. Plus, house with yard! A yard! and trees! I’m so excited!

started getting listings in our budget/guidelines emailed to us every day

spent hours poring over said listings.

spent Sunday driving through neighborhoods, getting a better idea of what we’re looking at

identified a small handful of houses we’d like to tour …

That’s as of this typing …. We are planning on going to actually look at individual houses w/ Bryan some day this week.

The nice thing is – we’re not in any rush. We’re month-to-month on our apartment and can take as long as we want. The other nice thing is – we have very similar tastes. I already went through and ‘discarded’ all the houses w/ no front yards and $180 HOA fees. I just know neither Andrew nor I would ever want to live in a house like that – regardless of the square footage.

We’re so excited!

If you have any house-buying tips, please leave them in the comments below.

We’ll keep you posted as we do more hunting, figure out specifically what we want, etc.

P.S. I need to come up with some kind of image banner for this series, as I foresee many more updates and more often

P.P.S. Anyone have a strong feeling re: evap cooling versus central AC? I feel like we shouldn’t turn down a good deal just because there’s no central AC since that is something we can install at a later date. What do you think?